The critical importance of ‘Thinking Time’.

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (2s):
G’day guys! Den here, episode 177, this week’s Shorty of the How to Scale a Video Business Podcast. So, I had a great, great coaching call today with my VBA Masterminders and we focused on the importance of quiet time, of Thinking Time and of creating space in your day, in your week. And to, to have time to think about the decision you want to make in your business, because all too often, we don’t spend enough time thinking about that decisions we are going to make that affect the business.

Den Lennie (46s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Great session this morning. I thought I was putting on one sec and make them pop as it magnetically sticks on. And so, yeah, you know, I’ve, I’m a big fan of a book called the road less stupid by Keith J. Cunningham and Keith Cunningham as it is not a serial entrepreneur. He has bought and saw many businesses that he’s made millions. His last millions has been a million’s and his book, the road less stupid talks about if you could reverse three financial decisions in your life, how would your life it today? So I started thinking about my foster father and my first flat that I bought in Greenwich for a hundred thousand pounds back in 1999.

Den Lennie (1m 35s):
And if I hadn’t sold that flat, it would not be worth 400,000 pounds and, you know, 20 odd years, so quadruple and values. And at the time I was too busy being a carer, a man enjoying life partying that you know, that they were getting into understanding property, investment. Wasn’t something I did as a cameraman in London. So I have to take full responsibility for that, that I didn’t spend the time thinking enough about that. When it came to sell it to make an informed decision, I took advice from someone I trusted at the time, and that the fact is as simple as a change in decision that would have been had, I just refinanced that taken equity out of the flat and bought the second place.

Den Lennie (2m 23s):
I’d have two places. I had done that again for the third place. I would have had three places, which means they would have had 1.2 million pounds was a property. Now, instead I sold a whole and now he still had a flat in London has got a bit of value in it. So it is not all lost, but the point being is that hadI spent more time thinking about that decision at the time. I perhaps would have made it a different decision. And if we take that theory of the road less stupid and, and Keith Cunningham talks about creating, Thinking Time in your day. And he actually suggests buying a Thinking chair and that Thinking chair, you sit for a half an hour to 45 minutes a day with a pattern Pam, and you basically write down one question that you want to solve and, and you sit in the chair until you solve it.

Den Lennie (3m 15s):
And so by, by sitting and thinking, you, you solve problems and you give everything a lot of attention. So imagine some of the decisions you make in your Video business that are snapped decisions that, that ultimately end up costing you. So want you to think about creating some thinking time in your day. And we had a public holiday here in Queensland yesterday, and is it, or just things that could have been doing, but in the afternoon it was just sitting in the sun and watching a bunch of YouTube. You’re not doing the old YouTube scroll. And I was just like, sit there thinking, Oh, you know, it should be doing the sun and the next thing. But, you know, I’m quite enjoying just laying around and just having a bit of downtime.

Den Lennie (3m 56s):
And during that process, I solve the problem. I solved the problem that I had been just in the back of my mind and I solved it. And all that example, just there are some of the same computer was a bit slower. So I was running and clean my Mark and doing a kind of a clean install of some things for her. And while, while CLI my Mac was grinding away, I was like, I could just brush off and do something else when I’m waiting. But instead I just sat and so on. And I just chatted and, and it was had a sitting that I said to her, Oh my God, I was just by sitting here and just being present, I’ve just come up with a great idea. This is going to be a revenue generator, solve a problem. And I was like, isn’t that crazy? Like by just sitting and thinking and not rushing and not looking to always be moving and scurrying around at the next thing I solve the problem that is going to be revenue generating.

Den Lennie (4m 45s):
And, and so, so you know, that, that, that the idea of stillness, the idea of taking time out is really important. It’s something we talk a lot about it in the VBA, you know, about making good decisions based on quieting the mind based on taking time to think, not always rushing. And I used to be very guilty of the more I do, the more I make I can, I can just outwork everyone else. And that whole notion of hustling, well, look, it’s its, you know, its not necessarily what you should be doing and you know, a number of my clients and I talk about this, you know, you don’t need to be hustling. You don’t need to be busting a gut.

Den Lennie (5m 26s):
It’s much more important that you focus on the right things and put your energy in the right places. So yeah, it was a really, really interesting conversations there cause we were talking a lot about system’s as well. And, and one of the things that popped into conversation was a system for yourself to execute better. So one of the conversations we had was around systemizing your business and, and by systemizing, I mean even the creative part of the business. So creating, you know, a loom videos of everything you do to enable you to communicate and, and, and share the knowledge that you have with the team member. And you got to get into a habit of creating systems.

Den Lennie (6m 8s):
And I actually have a label on my computer that says do it once recorded and create a system so that I have to create a system for me to execute creating systems and what I’m able to do that whenever I do any task that I’ve traditionally done myself, I simply stick the loom on and I have my, my work set up in a way that, you know, literally flick a button like a switch and I can record and I record systems. And then what happens is I got into my amazing assistant Milca and she then built a system that we were looking to hire someone else’s at the minute and expand the team further. And the one where we were going to do that is by, by having the new person coming in and follow the systems we’ve already built Milca will manage to that person so that, you know, I can focus on the higher value activities or the higher revenue generating activities.

Den Lennie (6m 59s):
And, and Milca, looks after all of the admin, all of the backend, she books, my calendar, she interfaces for the prospects. She was absolutely fantastic, but we want to expand her roll. So we need to expand some of that. The tasks that she will grow in a longer is, is like an overqualified to do and find someone to fill that role in a junior role. And then she can move up to more responsibility. So in order to do that, I spent time thinking, yeah, by the time I spent time thinking about, you know, the last week or so, I’ve just been going, how is, what is my next move? What is my next move in a business? Where do I go for it from a year? How do I Scale this in a way that doesn’t mean you have to work harder? I spent two days at an event with Ben Simkin last week and that was surrounded by amazing entrepreneurs.

Den Lennie (7m 42s):
And so I get some, some perspective from them by then, like to land on it, just like to spend time thinking about it because I don’t want to make the mistake I made in 1999 of selling my flat or 2001 selling that flat And, and then using the money to buy another place rather than refinancing. And that is just, that was just don’t have a knowledge. If I take extreme ownership, he was just don’t have knowledge. So how can I avoid those mistakes again by, by spending time for me. Okay. So I want you to think about that. I want you to spend time asking yourself the question and how much time do you spend making critical business decisions? Are the orphan just in a kind of a state of reaction, a state of firefighting.

Den Lennie (8m 26s):
It’s like, okay, quick decision to move that on, move on. Or are you you spending time thinking about really what you want? You know, one of the things we do do you do in the VBA, both the foundation and the mastermind is a module around, you know, what does success look like to you? Because if you’re not clear on what it looks like, then all you’re doing is building a business to make money, to buy something later on that you think is going to make you happy. Whereas if you get really clear on what you want, for example, I’m putting up a whole heap of solar on a roof just now. And it’s like, it’s a fair, a fair amount. It’s like 20 kilowatts of solar or a 10 kilowatt battery is a fairly substantial investment, but I’m doing it because I can. And ’cause, I want to, because I want to be greener.

Den Lennie (9m 8s):
The benefit is I’m going to get money back every day, by feeding back into the grid with green energy. And I spent a long time thinking about that. And now that you’ve got the house and be able to do it, it’s a really cool I’m. So, so, so spend time thinking about what matters to you. What does success look like to you? Because success to me is living in Australia by the beach, generating power from the roof and ultimately powering in the electric car and being completely carbon neutral. That’s a dream of mine. And so I feel like I’m a reaching my success whilst walking with amazing clients, helping them achieve amazing things. So what’s important to you have a think about it. Let me know, talk to us. You’ve been listening to the How to Scale a video business podcast with me, your host Den Lennie.

Den Lennie (9m 52s):
If you’re a Video business owner, it’s hit the ceiling and we benefit from a mentorship support and coaching and check out how you can work with me over at denlennie.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the show over on iTunes. And we really appreciate you takin a few minutes to leave review and don’t forget to share if you feel you’ve gotten value from this episode and you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, and please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.